Edward Franklin Albee III (March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American
playwright known for works such as
The Zoo Story (1958),
The Sandbox (1959),
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), and
A Delicate Balance (1966). Three of his plays won the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and two of his other works won the
Tony Award for Best Play.

His works are often considered as frank examinations of the modern
condition. His early works reflect a mastery and
Americanization of the
Theatre of the Absurd that found its peak in works by European playwrights
such as
Samuel Beckett,
Eugène Ionesco, and
Jean
Genet.

His middle period comprised plays that explored the psychology of maturing,
marriage, and sexual relationships. Younger American playwrights, such as
Paula
Vogel, credit Albee's daring mix of theatricality and biting dialogue with
helping to reinvent the post-war American theatre in the early 1960s. Later in
his life, Albee continued to experiment in works such as
The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? (2002).

Edward Albee was born in 1928. He was placed for
adoption
two weeks later and taken to
Larchmont in
Westchester County, New York, where he grew up. Albee's adoptive father,
Reed A. Albee, the wealthy son of
vaudeville magnate
Edward Franklin Albee II, owned several theaters. His adoptive mother,
Reed's third wife, Frances (Cotter), was a socialite.[1][2]
He would later base the main character of his 1991 play
Three Tall Women on his mother, with whom he had a conflicted
relationship.[3]

Albee attended the Clinton High School, then the
Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, from which he was expelled.[1]
He then was sent to
Valley Forge Military Academy in
Wayne, Pennsylvania, where he was dismissed in less than a year.[4]
He enrolled at
The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in
Wallingford, Connecticut,[5]
graduating in 1946. His formal education continued at
Trinity College in
Hartford, Connecticut, where he was expelled in 1947 for skipping classes
and refusing to attend compulsory chapel.[5]

The Actors Studio, NYC

Albee left home for good when he was in his late teens. In a later
interview, he said: "I never felt comfortable with the adoptive parents. I
don't think they knew how to be parents. I probably didn't know how to be a
son, either."[6]
In a 1994 interview, he stated that he left home at age 18 because "[he] had
to get out of that stultifying, suffocating environment."[3]
In a 2008 interview, he told interviewer
Charlie Rose that he was "thrown out" because his parents wanted him to
become a "corporate thug" and did not approve of his aspirations to become a
writer.[7]

Albee moved into New York's
Greenwich Village,[4]
where he supported himself with odd jobs while learning to write plays.[8]
His first play, The Zoo Story, which was written in three weeks,[9]
was first staged in
Berlin in
1959 before eventually premiering Off-Broadway in 1960.[10]
His next play, The Death of Bessie Smith, similarly premiered in Berlin
before arriving in New York.[11]

Albee's most iconic play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, opened on
Broadway at the
Billy Rose Theatre on October 13, 1962, and closed on May 16, 1964, after
five previews and 664 performances.[12]
The controversial play won the
Tony Award for Best Play in 1963 and was selected for the
1963 Pulitzer Prize by the award's drama jury, but was overruled by the
advisory committee, which elected not to give a drama award at all.[13]
The two members of the jury,
John Mason Brown and
John Gassner, subsequently resigned in protest.[14]
An
Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the controversial play was
released in 1966 starring
Elizabeth Taylor,
Richard Burton,
George Segal, and
Sandy Dennis. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the
United States
National Film Registry by the
Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant".[15]

According to the New York Times, Albee was "widely considered to be the
foremost American playwright of his generation."[16]

The less than diligent student later dedicated much of his time to
promoting American university theatre. Most recently, he served as
distinguished professor at the
University of Houston, where he taught an exclusive playwriting course. His plays are published by
Dramatists Play Service[17]
and
Samuel French, Inc.

Albee established the
Edward F. Albee Foundation, Inc. in 1967, from royalties from his play
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. The foundation funds the
William Flanagan Memorial Creative Persons Center (named after the
composer
William Flanagan, but better known as "The Barn") in
Montauk, New York, as a residence for writers and visual artists.[24]
The foundation's mission is "to serve writers and visual artists from all
walks of life, by providing time and space in which to work without
disturbance."[25]

Albee was openly
gay and stated that he first knew he was gay at age 12 and a half.[26]
Albee was briefly engaged to Larchmont debutante Delphine Weissinger, and
although their relationship ended when she moved to England, he remained a
close friend of the Weissinger family. Growing up, he often spent more of his
time in the Weissinger household than he did in his own, due to discord with
his adoptive parents.

Albee insisted that he did not want to be known as a "gay writer", stating
in his acceptance speech for the 2011
Lambda Literary Foundation's Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement: "A
writer who happens to be gay or lesbian must be able to transcend self. I am
not a gay writer. I am a writer who happens to be gay."[27]
His longtime partner, Jonathan Richard Thomas, a sculptor, died on May 2,
2005, from
bladder cancer. They had been partners from 1971 until Thomas's death.
Albee also had a relationship of several years with playwright
Terrence McNally during the 1950s.[28]

Albee died at his
Montauk, New York, home on September 16, 2016, aged 88.[28][21][29]